


Bastards at the Wall

by simplifiedwords



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire, Asoiaf - Fandom, GoT - Fandom, game of thrones
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-07
Updated: 2014-09-07
Packaged: 2018-02-16 11:35:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2268219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/simplifiedwords/pseuds/simplifiedwords
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if Gendry and the other recruits safely arrived on the Wall? A one-shot about Jon and Gendry talking about Arya. With a sprinkle of Donal Noye on the top. Maybe Ned too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bastards at the Wall

**Author's Note:**

> This is seriously unedited so I’m sorry if there so many mistakes.

King’s Landing had always been warm, to say the least. His mother gave birth to him in a room burned by afternoon sun. He grew up alongside the furnaces at Tobho Mott’s shop, spent his days beating down heated metal. The stink of sweat was something he knew all too well. Even the nights in the capital were rarely ever cold.

It was not a wonder why Gendry felt out of place in the bleak planes of the North. The cold winds sent alarming chills down his spine. His sweat cooled quickly, his skin felt too dry and his new thick doublet that was meant to keep him warm felt too heavy.

He didn’t understand fully why Tobho Mott decided to send him away all of a sudden. To the Night’s Watch of all places. Gendry was his only apprentice, and the lad thought he was doing well. But the boy knew it wasn’t his place to question the closest thing he had to a father, no matter how poor the man was at being one. Still, Gendry held some resentment in him, and he poured every bit of it each time he brought the hammer down on the glowing steel.

 _This_ was familiar though. The heat of a burning coal. The hiss a newly forged blade made when dipped in water. The heavy load of a hammer in his hand, the way the muscles in his arm tightened when he swung it upward and the how the steel sang whenever he brought it down.

Even so, not everything on the Wall was as bad as Gendry thought. The Wall itself was breathtaking. Said to be seven hundred feet in height, the color of the ice would shift between the peach of the dawn to the dark purple of the dusk, and it sometimes he even saw it weeping.

The Lord Commander had been gruff when he met them on their arrival, but he had an air of authority and Gendry liked his easy laugh and stubbornness. Most of the brothers were friendly, some were frightened of him, some just did not care. Gendry learned that he was not the only who didn’t like the master-of-arms. And the food was better than what he had on their way to the Wall.

What he admired the most though was Castle Black’s one armed armorer, Donal Noye, who offered Gendry to continue his apprenticeship with him.

He was a smith at Storm’s End and fought in the rebellion. And the fact that he could still forge a sword after losing one arm amazed Gendry. But the man would stare at him from time to time, as if he saw an old friend he hadn’t seen in a long while and it made the lad uneasy.

"You traveled with Yoren and my sister." said a voice. He turned to find a young man with familiar features.  _Jon Snow._  A white shadow of beast standing idly at his side.

"Aye, with the other recruits." he answered. Gendry knew that Jon would come and talk to him about his sister soon, Yoren would have told him about and his adventured with his sister, but knowing so did not prepared him that much when the actual moment came.

"She didn’t cause many trouble, did she?" he asked. Gendry could only chuckle in response. The mere thought of her being a good proper lady and not causing trouble was enough to make him piss in his breeches.

Jon took the hint and laughed. “I’ve spoken too soon, then.” he said, running his hand across the wolf’s head. “She’s always been a feisty girl.”

Despite himself, Gendry smiled remembering a time when the girl tried to pick on him. Even threatened him with that Needle of hers. “Feisty is too soft a word for Arry, I think.” he said carelessly. That was a mistake.

"Arry?" inquired Jon, his eyebrows raised but the rest of his face and his voice were suddenly solemn. "Is that your pet name for her?"

The question stunned Gendry, the hammer stopping mid-air. This was her brother. But he was not Lord Bran or little Lord Rickon who he met at Winterfell. They were little children. This was a man of the Night’s Watch. A steward of the Lord Commander. And  _her big brother_. “I.. Ah no, m’lord it was her-“

"I’m not really a lord, Gendry." Jon said nonchalantly.

He might as well hammered his head instead. Jon was no lordling.  _He’s a bastard too_. But who could blame anyone who might mistake him for a highborn? He talked like one, walked like one. Even smelled like one. But it wasn’t as if Gendry smelled a lord before.. Or a lady..

"I’m sorry… _Jon._ " said Gendry when he gathered his bearings. The name felt foreign to him but he knew he needed to be used to calling him that. Jon Snow. A bastard name.  _Like mine._  Annoyed at himself, he began hitting the steel again. But the singing it made gave him little comfort.

"So you call her Arry then?" Jon insisted. Gendry was suddenly very aware of the silent beast that sat by Jon’s leg. It was beauty to look at, fur white as snow and dark red eyes. Gendry couldn’t take his eyes off the creature during the first week whenever it walked by.

But beauty always had a dangerous side to it. It wasn’t very clear when one would looked at Arry, but it was there. While from the direwolf it was coming off in strong endless waves. He wondered how long it would take a giant like that to tackle him down.

"I did but.. ah.." Gendry stammered, hitting the metal harder it began to gently curve out of shape. He would have to fix that later. "She had to dress up as a boy. To keep herself safe. Got no choice, being a little girl with a bunch of rapers and poachers and with the war going on wasn’t exactly safe, but your sister’s clever. Arry was what she called herself. A boy’s name."

"I see.. Arry.." said Jon, smiling softly to himself as if he recalled some memory of the past.

"Do you think she’s wild?" he asked, his face stoic once again. Why was he asking Gendry questions that made him uncomfortable? Was he testing him? He hoped he wouldn’t ask him if he thinks his little sister is pretty next.

"She’s smart. Knew how to survive. She cut her hair real short, you wouldn’t recognize her I bet." Gendry shared warily. "Even got m’self convinced that she was no little girl at first. She beaten the shit out of couple of these nasty recruits when they picked on her with that skinny Braavosi sword of hers."

This brought another smile, wider than the last, on Jon’s face. “Needle,” he said, “You mean she still has it?”

Seeing the smile brought relief to the young smith, the heavy load on his shoulders slowly lifted. _They look a lot like each other_. The shape of steward’s face. Those expressions which were open but tight at the same time. It reminded Gendry of the smile she rarely had on their way North, the wasted riverlands wouldn’t make anyone skip with joy anyhow, and the teary smile she thought she could hide when they finally saw the towers of Winterfell from afar.

"Aye, it’s her treasure. Wouldn’t let anyone touch it. I asked her one time if I could take a look. T’was a fine sword, wanted to see the metal work. And she answered me with a taste of the blade on my hind!"

Laughter bounced against the Wall and echoed across the grounds. A few black brothers turned to look at them, two young men who seemed to have lost their wits. It was a good feeling, to laugh freely again.

The last time Gendry could remember was during their stop at Winterfell. Hot Pie cried when Lord Bran’s wolf came near him, tears streaming down his pink, fat face and the folk would have thought it was the funniest thing he, Arry and little Lord Rickon had seen with the way they laughed.  _It was fun when she was around._  Hot Pie and Lommy seemed to have mellowed down since they arrived on the Wall.

"Yoren tells me you’ve watched out for her as well." said Jon when the laughter died a little. "I can’t thank you enough for whatever you’ve done for her."

It felt uncomfortable, being thanked for scolding, teasing and playing tricks on a little girl. “That sister of yours liked to look for trouble. I did what I could do. What anyone else could’ve done.” Gendry said, shrugging.

"Still, you have my thanks." He pulled off the leather glove from his right hand and reached out, a painfully grateful smile on his face. Gendry set the hammer down, and after a wiping off some dirt on his jerkin, took the steward’s outstretched hand, smiling.

"You were the brother she needed." said Jon.

He knew it was meant well, but the words stung when he pulled back his arm.  _The brother she needed_. He did act the part. Scolded her when she did something stupid, which she always did. Immediately thought of her safety at the slightest sign of danger. Even searched for her whenever she would go out of the column to wander off like he was out of himself.

 _He’s right._  Yet it didn’t sit well with him to see her as his own little sister. He couldn’t imagine looking at his little sister and suddenly feeling the same things he felt whenever he looked at her. Or liking the idea of his little sister being as close as she had been on the that night when Arry rolled too close to him in her sleep. Maybe Jon shouldn’t be thanking him at all.

"That wolf of yours, Arry—I mean Arya, told me some about it. Makes no noise." said Gendry, nodding towards the wolf as he beat down the metal back into shape. Ghost it was named, he remembered.

"Ghost never makes any sound." said Jon, fitting his hand back into the glove but he was smiling at his pet. "Arya had a wolf once too. She called her Nymeria, after the warrior queen. Arya liked her story."

Gendry knew the name but remembered little about it. After his mother died, he lost any interest on tales and stories. But he did recall a few times of Arry saying it was her favorite legend.

Jon crouched down to Ghost’s height. “I wish she hadn’t lost Nymeria, and Lady, Sansa’s wolf, didn’t die. Maybe things would have been different.” he said sadly, stroking the wolf’s fur. “Maybe father would still be alive.”

Gendry remembered him. Dark, gray eyes and had long, tired face. Arry looked like him, but the resemblance was stronger on Jon. “I met him. Lord Eddard.” he said, which made Jon stood up slowly.

"Went to our shop once at Flea Bottom." Gendry continued, "He liked my helm, the bull’s head. I told him it wasn’t for sale. Said he wasn’t really going to buy it, just thought that it was really well made. Even praised me. He was a good man."

"I wish I could have seen him one last time." said Jon. Gendry wanted to ask about Jon’s mother but immediately decided not to. He himself didn’t like being asked about who might have been his father.

The steward was silent for time, looking at Ghost, while Gendry continued on beating down the hammer. The steel was getting cold much faster than he was used to, he would need to thin out the edge soon.

"You do well in the training grounds. I’ve seen you and those arms of yours." Jon said, to which Gendry could only grunt. The training was the least part he liked about the Wall, the master-at-arms liked to use him to beat the softer boys.

"Ser Alliser don’t think that way though." he said, lifting the blade close to get a look at the edge. "Says I’m all bulk and no brain."

"I could teach you sometime." I’d like to see the thorny knight’s face when you prove him was wrong."

"Then he’d prick me like your sister did."

Their laughter brought out Donal Noye from inside the armory. The man was about to say something but he paused midway when he saw Jon with him. He looked at the both of them then, eyes wide and mouth hanging open. Gendry wondered what Donal Noye saw in him and Jon. A friendship he had with someone long ago? Was he longing for his younger days? Whatever he might have seen, they were still just bastards at the Wall.

"What is it, Noye?" asked Jon, waving a hand in front of the smith’s face. He had been stunned into silence for a full minute or so.

"Nothing." said the armorer, ripped away from his sudden trance. "Just a ghost from the past." True to his word, he did look like he saw a one. Beads of sweat were forming on his forehead.

Jon chuckled. “You’re scared of ghosts now?”

"You  _believe_  in ghosts now?” Gendry added in with a light tone, while he reached for the clean rag he meant to use to wipe his sweat with and handed to Donal Noye. The master smith wiped his forehead, the fabric darker when he was done a wide grin was now on his face.

“You lads start to get along; you think you’ve gotten funnier. Well you haven’t.”

"At least I have a sense of humor, Noye." snapped Jon with grin of his own.

"I think I’ve only heard you laugh once." Gendry teased as well, he even stopped his last beating of the steel and pretended to act as if he was trying to remember another time while scratching his head.

Donal Noye’s booming laugh could have shaken the Wall down. “Trying to pick on the one-armed smith, eh? Not the wisest decision you’ve made, I tell you. Don’t you have duties Lord Snow? Run along now before I hit you and make you sing.”

He waved Jon away several times and then turned to Gendry. “And you lad, you’re good aye. Mott taught you well but the Wall needs real steel not some fancy steel for tournaments and games.” Gendry would have replied that he did know how to make real swords if only he weren’t trying to stop himself from laughing.

"Don’t be too harsh on him, Noye." Jon laughed. "I’ll see you at dinner then, Gendry. I don’t feel like singing as of yet. We’ll talk about that training.” The steward lightly hit his arm, smiling, and bid his direwolf to follow him towards King’s tower.

Donal Noye was talking beside him, about some war hammer he made, but Gendry could only watch the direwolf’s bastard and his pet wolf walk away.  _A bastard like me_. He dipped the steel into the bucket of water and savored the hiss it made. With his new friendship with Jon Snow, the good master he found in Donal Noye, and the hope that she might come visit her brother someday… And maybe him as well..

Aye, Gendry believed he might actually do well in the Watch.


End file.
